Everything
about Frank Frazetta's art is bigger than life. Born in Brooklyn,
NY, in 1928, his talent was so prodigious that he had his first
professional comic story, "The Snowman" in Tally-Ho
Comics (see panel at left), published in 1944 at the tender
age of 16. During the 1940's, his primary outlet was Standard
(or Nedor) Publishing Co. for which he did hundreds of small illustrations
that were used to illustrate text stories. Titles include Barnyard,
Coo Coo, Goofy and Happy. He did a few stories
for these titles, plus occasional forays into "serious"
genres like crime and westerns. And even then, he was learning
how to paint, as the fairy from 1949 attests.
In
the early 1950's, Frazetta burst upon the mainstream comic scene
with an incredible explosion of talent and energy. He did series
for DC ("The Shining Knight" in Adventure Comics),
ME ("White Indian" in Durango Kid - see image
at right), Toby ("John Wayne" in John Wayne Comics,
with Al Williamson); covers for Eastern (Heroic
Comics), Famous Funnies (Famous Funnies Comics - the classic
"Buck Rogers" covers), ME (Bobby Benson's B-Bar-B
Riders, Ghost Rider, Straight Arrow, and Tim Holt);
and stories (some solo and some with Williamson and friends)
for ACG, Avon, DC, Eastern, EC, Standard, and others. Plus
he was doing his own newspaper strip, "Johnny Comet".
In
1953, this amazing powerhouse of energy was harnessed by a combination
of laziness, money and his love of goofing off and playing baseball
(Frank was scouted by the pros - I'm glad he chose art!). He went
to work for Al Capp assisting him on "Li'l Abner"
- a position he held for eight or nine years. His comic book work
tailed off to nothing by 1955 and he seemed to simply disappear
from the world of art and comics, smothered under the Capp house
style.
The Capp experience took a couple of years to recover from.
When he quit he thought he'd just storm back into comics, but
the market had drastically changed by the early '60s. His first
jobs were for men's magazines (like Gent and Dude)
and for a couple of sexy paperbacks referred to as "The Midwood
Doubles". For these, Frazetta did interior drawings which
have since been reprinted as The Sensuous Frazetta, The Frazetta
You Didn't Know About, and elsewhere.
He never really did get back to
comics, though. Roy
Krenkel, one of the Fleagles from the EC days,
convinced him to try his hand at painting paperback covers and
helped him out on his first few jobs - "Tarzan"
covers for Ace Books. In 1964 Jim Warren recruited him to do a
comic story for the first issue of his new magazine, Creepy.
It was to be the last pen & ink comic strip Frank would do.
At about the same time an issue of Mad Magazine appeared
with a Frazetta back cover painting of Ringo Starr as a model
for Blecch Shampoo and the direction of his career was forever
altered. Frank Frazetta wasn't a comic book or comic strip artist,
Frank Frazetta was a painter.
The
1965 to 1973 period was as explosive for Frazetta the painter
as the early '50s were for Frazetta the comic book artist. Most
of the seminal images we're so familiar with were done at this
time: the Warren Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella covers,
the Conan paperback covers, dozens of other covers for
magazines and paperbacks (like Black Emperor above), the
movie posters, Science Fiction Book Club ERB Martian series and
other hardback dust jackets, and a slew of fanzine appearances
that served to keep his reputation as a pen & ink master alive
through the years. One of the unusual places his art appeared
was in the magazine Elements, published by Dow Chemicals
in 1973. A full-page color piece, at left, and two pen & ink
drawings accompanied an article on the future of recycling.
During this period Frank also became the primary influence
on the world of science fiction art. Artists like Jeff Jones, Berni Wrightson, Michael Whelan,
Don Maitz, Boris Vallejo and many others were inclined, inspired
or instructed to paint in this new, dynamic "Frazetta"
style. The echoes of his work still resound in the s-f covers
of today's bookstores.
The late Seventies and the Eighties saw a series of limited edition portfolios (Kubla Khan, Women of the Ages, Lord of the Rings), a film (Fire & Ice), a five volume series of books devoted to his work (The Fantastic Art of Frank Frazetta and Frank Frazetta Books 2-5 from Ballantine), occasional paperback covers, limited edition prints (selling for thousands) taken from the covers of The Writers of the Future paperback series from Bridge Publications, a series of paperbacks featuring his Death Dealer (written with Jim Silke), and little else. His impact was still being felt in the art world as Arthur Suydam and Simon Bisley came under his spell.
Much
of this time he was fighting an undiagnosed thyroid condition
that robbed him of much of his vitality and inspiration. As he was recovering,
but physically weakened from the trauma, Frank was once again creating
exciting and stunning images that will surely serve to inspire
another generation of artists. And once again, he was doing it in
comics.
Recently, several great books have been published on Frazetta. The Alexander Gallery Retrospective and the trio of Icon, Legacy and Testament from Arnie Fenner and Underwood Books are not to be missed.
Frank Frazetta died in May, 2010. His influence on the world of art is very much alive.
For more information on Frank Frazetta, see:
| The Comics Journal #174 Interview | Gary Groth, Fantagraphics, 1995 |
| Days of Wine & ... Fleagles?! | Nick Meglin, Squa Tront #s 4 & 5, Jerry Weist, 1969 & 1970 |
| Frank Frazetta, A Retrospective | Alexander Gallery, 1994 |
| Frank Frazetta Books 1-5 | Betty Ballantine, Peacock/Bantam 1975-1985 |
| Frank Frazetta Book One | Ellie Frazetta, Frazetta Prints, 1996 |
| The Frank Frazetta Index | Fred Nardelli, 1975 |
| Frank Frazetta The Living Legend | Frazetta Prints, 1981 |
| The Frazetta Pillow Book | Kitchen Sink, 1994 |
| Li'l Abner | Kitchen Sink reprint series, 1994-1997 |
| Small Wonders - The Funny Animal Art of FF | Greg Theakston, Kitchen Sink/Pure Imagination, 1991 |
| The Vadeboncoeur Collection of Knowledge | Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., 1997 |
| The Who's Who of American Comic Books | Jerry Bails & Hames Ware, 1973 and 1997 |
|
Illustrations copyright by
their respective owners. This page written, designed & © 1998 by Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. Updated 2011. |
